A recent symposium organised by the human rights group JUSTICE considered the plight of the wrongfully convicted and the disgraceful way that the state is treating people who are, after all, victims of state error. The issue is not simply about...

In light of the tragic events earlier this week, it may be worth pausing to reflect on the balance that needs to be struck between responsible reporting and its impact on the integrity of future legal proceedings. The need to do so does not begin...

‘Everyday I get up I think about the case. I open my eyes in the morning and it’s the first thing on my mind,’ says Paul Caddick, brother-in-law of Eddie Gilfoyle. It was Caddick who made the grim discovery on June 4 1992: Paula Gilfoyle hanging...

Since The Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) reported at the end of 2012 there has been a reinvigorated campaign to open a public inquiry into what happened at ‘The Battle of Orgreave’ on June 18 1984. In many people’s minds, the events...

MPs have warned that proposals to incentivise defendants to plead guilty at an earlier stage could lead to a need for a further 4,000 prison places. The Sentencing Council have proposed that the maximum credit for a guilty plea (one-third) will...

‘I feel like a war reporter chronicling some huge battle,’ says Susan Goldsmith. A veteran investigative journalist based in Portland, US, Goldsmith has spent the last eight years looking into perhaps the most contentious intersection of medicine...

The UK has been criticised over a failure to protect the best interests of unaccompanied refugee children applying for asylum. In a new briefing, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) together with the charity Unicef have reviewed...

“I genuinely believe access to justice is the hallmark of a civilised society.” These were the rousing words that in 2010, the then justice secretary Ken Clarke used to introduce the coalition government’s legal aid reforms...

The Investigatory Powers Bills that passed its finals stages in the House of Commons early this week, has been damned as ‘deeply flawed’ by privacy campaigners. The final version of the so-called Snoopers’ Charter was passed in...

As crime dramas on television churn at an increasingly rapid rate, those no longer on screen are quickly pushed to the back of the national consciousness. But I believe that The Secret should be remembered and should continue to stimulate...

In a previous posting here I discussed the failures of the ambulance service at Hillsborough. In this blog I want to consider the conduct of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) at the recently concluded Inquests into the deaths of 96 Liverpool...

An NHS-commissioned report has raised fears of an ever-worsening epidemic of ‘legal highs’. An ex-offenders’ organisation, User Voice, spoke directly to current prisoners in nine jails across England and found these prisons were...